


LAVENDER

by iexoeris



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Angst, Beautiful, ChanBaek - Freeform, Comfort, Death, Hurt, Life - Freeform, M/M, Short, Slice of Life, age gap, kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 06:42:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23347132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iexoeris/pseuds/iexoeris
Summary: - ...flowers are known to represent purity, devotion, serenity, grace, calmness and /silence/ -Where Baekhyun was the sun, gave life to the world, and all Chanyeol wanted was to be burnt by that shine...until the skies went dark.
Relationships: Byun Baekhyun/Park Chanyeol
Comments: 3
Kudos: 7





	LAVENDER

**Author's Note:**

> This is my take of I'm Fine video. It is a small work but means a lot to me, hopefully, by the end of this, you'd be able to understand why. Happy reading!

# LAVENDER

  


He was sitting on his wooden chair, holding a teacup in his hand; the classical pot kept not far away. The rays of the sun served as his halo. The sun shone only for Byun Baekhyun. Chanyeol was just like the others, pleading on his knees for one ray. One smile could brighten up his life.

On the wooden table, there was a flower – purple in colours, and beautiful. He stepped in the room, slow, so as not to disturb the ethereal sight in front of him –

“Which flowers are these?” He stammered, awkwardness settling in his gut. Baekhyun was so beautiful, so radiant…and well, Chanyeol at the age of fourteen could only describe himself as lanky and clumsy.

The older’s face turned towards him, a bright smile ripping out of him, “These flowers? They’re my favourite – _lavenders._ ”

Baekhyun, at the age of seventeen, was an angel on earth. They lived in the village, atop the hills. Just below them was the vast expanse of the sea. It was a beautiful place, but it wasn’t as beautiful as Baekhyun, who sat on his chair, drank and made different kinds of tea, watched the sunsets and sunrises, planted flowers and spilled out botany, and smiled at everybody.

“They’re your favourites?” Chanyeol exclaimed, walking towards the table, “Why?”

“It’s not because of how they look, rather what they signify - purity, devotion, serenity, calmness. And purple is already a royal dignified colour, is it not?” Baekhyun’s eyes were brown but with the sun hitting them, they were honeyed hazel, like the colour of melting gold. There was an endearing smile on his face.

“It is. It’s beautiful.” Chanyeol said earnestly.

“What’s your favourite flower?” Baekhyun asked.

Chanyeol didn’t answer him. 

That evening, they watched the sunset from the window, while Baekhyun told him more about the flowers that he liked, what they meant, and other things – the sunlight, the sky, the moonlight, the tea, fish, animals – everything.

He still remembers Baekhyun smiling cheekily, the corner of his mouth lifting, and his eyes shining playfully – paint in his eyes:

“Everything is important.”

_Am I?_

* * *

Years could be broken down into months, months into weeks, weeks into days, days into hours, and hours into seconds.

With Baekhyun, it felt like he was living through every split of a split second, filling them with beauty, gracefulness.

By the time Chanyeol was seventeen, Baekhyun was a beautiful adult, yet, their hearts were like kids – skirting around, laughing in the corridors, playing with sunshine, and shadows. Baekhyun smelt like the prettiest bouquet ever made, and the refreshing tinge of tea stuck to him.

“You…” The boy scrunched his nose, “Smell like…leather and books.”

Chanyeol laughed a bit, “Well, that isn’t very pleasant.”

Baekhyun’s eyes were distant when he said, “No. I like it.”

Times fades back; memories lay distinct into one big sphere that has permanently embedded itself into Chanyeol’s heart. He remembers the smiles, the touches, softer than the feathers of a bird about to take flight.

They never took flight.

Darkness had fallen into their lives.

* * *

Before the night Chanyeol embarked on another journey, far from the hills, the sea, the fish-shaped bell on Baekhyun’s porch, away from the flowers, the small school to the city, he had visited _his_ house.

Baekhyun was lying on the chair. He wasn’t moving, just staring at the moonlight. There was something about him – not at peace, yet not at war; something that could be observed; something that was happening; Baekhyun looked so humane that he didn’t look human.

Chanyeol stepped into the room but stopped when he saw the lavender pot. _It was dead_. The flowers lay dried and rotten at the base of the mud. Was that why Baekhyun was sad?

“Hey,” he called out, “Your lavender…”

The older’s eyes flicked down to the flower, and then back up to Chanyeol. There was a curious glint in his eyes. The moonlight made it seem as if there were stars in his eyes, glimmering, flicking – were those tears?

Chanyeol had known Baekhyun for many years, but he had never seen tears in the eyes of the older.

They couldn’t be tears.

“It is dead,” Chanyeol’s voice came out sad, and the older sensed it. He gave him a little smile and asked him to sit.

“It’s not dead, because it died, Chanyeol,” Baekhyun’s voice was softer, softer than petals of flowers, softer than the cotton buds that flew in summers, softer than the ocean waves they dipped their feet into and shrieked in laughter, “It is dead, because it doesn’t change anymore.”

_Beat_

Chanyeol tried for a smile, but he couldn’t.

The moonlight didn’t seem ethereal anymore, it seemed lonely.

“You’re very poetic, you know that, right?” He said, looking away from Baekhyun’s face and down at the flower.

“I don’t think I’m poetic, Chanyeol,” Baekhyun finally smiled, but it was empty, it was maniacal as if he had finally realised something, “I’m the poem. My life is a poem.”

Chanyeol was about to say something like, _you’re so beautiful, many poems can be written about you._

He didn’t, because Baekhyun continued –

“And you know a common thing poems share?”

“I don’t.”

Baekhyun smiled, and a lone tear dropped down his face, catching moonlight, “You’ll learn.”

They sat in silence, before Chanyeol dropped the bomb –

“Baekhyun, I’m leaving,” he took in a sharp breath, “I’m going out to study…I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

If pain was a person, then it would’ve looked like Baekhyun in that second.

If guilt was a person, then it would’ve looked like Chanyeol in that second.

The second passed, but the second remained in their memories.

Baekhyun was the one who had taught Chanyeol to live in seconds. Days were too long and too short to capture the beauty of the world. Humans were just too self-centred to live in those seconds.

“Well…you know what they say,” Baekhyun started, his eyes were on the glass windows, “A bird has to fly.” And when he smiled, it was the biggest smile, “Return to me with my favourite flowers, will you?”

“That goes without saying, Baekhyun,” Chanyeol’s heart spilled out, “I want to return to _my_ favourite flower.”

There was emotion in his eyes, reflected in the eyes of his favourite flower, his favourite poem, his favourite life. Baekhyun was so alive, laughing under the sun, smiling with the trees, planting life, giving him, so energetic – he was the sun, and all Chanyeol wanted was to _burn_ in him.

That night, they came closer…and closer until their lips brushed against each other. Baekhyun’s lips were rose petals, and Chanyeol’s were the pages of a book. It was perfect. The older’s delicate hand held onto his jaw, and his hands wound against the pretty frame, pulling him closer.

They were writing another poem – one of love.

And when dawn came and Chanyeol stood on the edge of the hill, ready to depart, he understood what all poems had in common:

_They end._

* * *

Chanyeol is scared to go back, because he has changed.

He has opened his wings and glided over the cities, the rush, the joy, the money, the exhilaration, the sex, the wine, the sweat – he has lived through all of it, and now, he is going back to a timeless place, where time doesn’t seem to exist, where the sun flickers and peeks over the green leaves, where the skies smile, and cry, thunder, storm. That place where the seas remain the same, and just like a wave that travelled way too far, he will be going back – after four years.

_His favourite flower._

He has travelled the world, but he has never seen a beauty like _him,_ a smile like _his_. Throughout his journey, his memories faded, pushed back to his mind for he didn’t want the call of home to be greater than the call of the unknown.

But somehow, as the sunlight hits his skin through his car window, and as the wind flutters and dances around his body, and as the sky above spreads out to infinity as he rolls towards the mountains, and as the sea spreads wide and free - _he sees Baekhyun_

In everything.

He doesn’t want to go back to his past, no, he’s proud of how hard he has worked, and how far he has come…but if he can just take a second of his life, and go back to the time when they sat near the window, soft sunlight pouring down his face as Baekhyun made him tea, and spoke in his soft voice about the beauty of nature.

Just a moment.

He reaches the town, and then the house. When he enters with the lavender flowers, a smile tears through his face upon seeing the bird bell; it moves and sounds as he steps in. Baekhyun’s uncle comes out. First, he hugs him. Second, he cries a little. Chanyeol thinks he cries too.

They settle into the living room, and Chanyeol eyes the ceramic pot as the tea is poured. Internally, he practices his lines for Baekhyun, gets ready for the words –

_I missed you_

_I’m back_

_My favourite flower_

And then, just random gibberish that he had learnt, but he doesn’t get time to say anything when the uncle announces –

“Baekhyun passed away.”

_Silence_

“H – How?”

“He was sick for a long time, passed away three months ago.” The uncle says, “In fact, we learnt of his sickness when you came to say goodbye.”

The uncle leaves: gives him time to collect himself. Chanyeol doesn’t cry – he just lets one lone tear slip – because on that moonlit night, Baekhyun had only let one tear slip. He feels like he’s honouring the memory, somehow.

And for some reason, it isn’t unnatural.

Baekhyun – he was too beautiful to exist in a world like this. He was too much of an enigma to spill his secrets. They tell him he was cremated with lavenders, and that the last thing he had said was: _I’ll become the sun._ Beautiful.

Until the end, through and through, beautiful.

But then, why does his heart hurt so badly?

Suddenly, the present washes away and he’s just a small, scared kid, running after the sun on the beach. And then he falls. The sun sets, but there is a hand in front of hm –

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

He had looked up to see another sun, one that didn’t set all the time. What was more beautiful? A sun that set everyday or a sun that set once and never came back up again?

But, no, that is wrong.

“I want to give…him his favourite flowers.”

The uncle nods, and they set out in the car. Chanyeol eyes the fish bell. For some reason, he feels like he’s never going to see it again. He forgot about it all these years after all. When they drive out, his eyes are on the window, and he can see Baekhyun sitting there, smiling.

The sun shines through on his face, and that is Baekhyun too.

The lavenders smell like him. The skies paint out his name. The world is filled with him, with his twinkling traces. He was imprinted all over the world. Chanyeol had just never looked at him.

_It’s not dead because it died, Chanyeol. It is dead because it doesn’t change anymore._

_Can I remember you forever – the way you are? Because you won’t change, now. You’re mine to treasure. Can I just remember you forever, remember your smell, remember your touch, your love?_

_The fact that you’re my sun._

They reach the beach, and Chanyeol stares out at the empty sand and the empty ocean, and he imagines him. He’s smiling, shrieking, staring out at the camera. Vivid. Lively. _Remain that way forever._

Chanyeol promises never to forget him.

He imagines crinkly eyes. _And you know a common thing about poems?_

_I don’t._

_You’ll learn._

And he has.

Poems end.

Baekhyun’s life end, but the life he has lived is still alive. It won’t change. It will remain, just like the characters of a book when the book ends.

“Byun Baekhyun, you were the most beautiful poem ever.” He dips the lavender flowers in the ocean. A deep pain tears through his heart, threatening to rip it in half. He wants to shout, he wants to cry, he wants to scream.

He doesn’t want to say goodbye.

He doesn’t want Baekhyun to be a memory.

He doesn’t want Baekhyun to fade.

He wants Baekhyun to be there.

He wants Baekhyun to hold his hand.

He wants Baekhyun to love him.

But as the lavender travels further away, he can hear his voice saying - _I’ll become the sun_

“Baekhyun…he lived,” the uncle says, there’s a wistful smile on his face, “He’s dead, but he is still alive…in silence.”

_And oh, Byun Baekhyun, one of the random things I wanted to tell you was that Lavenders also stood for silence. Why didn’t you tell me that?_

**Author's Note:**

> So, what did you think? Do let me know in the comments below! This was inspired by my 3 AMs talk with my partner (^^) and a lot of people writing angst. Do support Studio NNG and Kim Junmyeon's solo album which is coming out soon!
> 
> I appreciate comments! Did this make you think of someone or did you like a line? Let me know! Also, stay healthy and safe and please practice social distancing. It's a hard time right now. 
> 
> Love,  
> Feather.


End file.
